He said, wearily, 'Oh, education, I suppose. Education. There's nothing else. Learning.' He said the word with affection, lingering on it, striking his hand on the sofa-back to emphasise it.
'Learning, learning, learning. There's nothing else…. We should drop all this talking and writing. All this confused, uneducated mass of self-expression. Self-expression, with no self worth expressing. That's just what we shouldn't do with our selves—express them. We should train them, educate them, teach them to think, see that they know something—know it exactly, with no blurred edges, no fogs. Be sure of our facts, and keep theories out of the system like poison. And when we say anything we should say it concisely and baldly, without eloquence and frills. Lord, how I loathe eloquence!'
'But you can't get away from it, darling. All right, don't mind me, I like it…. Well now, what are you going to do about it? Teach in a continuation school?'
'No,' he said, seriously. 'No. Though one might do worse. But I've got to get right away for a time—right out of it all. I've got to find things out before I do anything else.'
'Well, there are plenty of, things to find out here. No need to go away for that.'
He shook his head.
'Western Europe's so hopeless just now. So given over to muddle and lies.
Besides, I can't trust myself, I shall talk if I stay. I'm not a strong
silent man. I should find myself writing articles, or standing for
Parliament, or something.'
'And very nice too. I've always said you ought to stand for Labour.'
'And I've sometimes agreed with you. But now I know I oughtn't. That's not the way. I'm not going to join in that mess. I'm not good enough to make it worth while. I should either get swamped by it, or I should get so angry that I should murder some one. No, I'm going right out of it all for a bit. I want to find out a little, if I can, about how things are in other countries. Central Europe. Russia. I shall go to Russia.'
'Russia! You'll come back and write about it. People do.'